My Father's Only Rule

Chapter Twenty: Reconciliation

February 1995 - Hogwarts

I saw him in the hall on the way to quidditch practice. It was the first time we had come face to face since I broke up with him. We locked eyes, then he pulled away. And all I could do was feel bad.

"Cedric," I blurted out. He stopped and turned around slowly. He looked so confused.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I-I uh," I stammered. I knew I wanted to say something to him, I just didn't know what. "I just wanna make sure there's no bad blood between us." His eyes softened as he looked at me. Oh my god, he looked so cute.

"I know you're with Cho now," I started rambling. "And that's great. And I hope you guys are so happy together. I really do. But I just wanted you to know that I know I ended us abruptly, out of nowhere and right before the ball, which was so not cool of me. But I just wanted to tell you that you were my first...everything really. And I'm grateful for it all. The good things and the bad things. But we haven't spoken in months and things feel weird. Obviously I'm not trying to get back together. But I do miss you." I looked up from my rant to see him looking at me. He laughed a little.

"Yeah," he said. "We're ok." That's it? I pour my heart out and that's all I get? But at least the tension was beginning to fade. "Are you on your way to quidditch?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said lightly.

"You want me to join you?" Join me? Why would he want to join me? Oh my god, did he still have feelings for me? Did I just open up his emotions all over again? "Cho is getting out of practice. I figured I might surprise her by meeting her there."

"Oh," I said, sighing a breath of relief. It was Cho, not me. "Yeah that'd be nice." We started walking to the quidditch pitch together.

"That was a great game, by the way," he said. "You've really never played before?"

"No," I said. "That was my first game."

"It was brilliant," he said.

"Thanks."

"Gave Cho quite a scare," he laughed. "She's paranoid you'll send a bludger her way at your match like you did to Weasley. It's all everyone is talking about."

"What?" I asked.

"Everyone thinks that you're going to try to knock out Cho at the match," he said. "Why would I do that?" I asked.

"To win," he said. "It's a popular strategy in quidditch to take out the seeker. But it's

really hard to do. But after Weasley, well, I think everyone's expecting you to pull it off."

"That was an accident," I said, defending myself.

"It looked pretty intentional," he said.

"I mean yes, I sent the bludger his way. I didn't mean for him to end up in the hospital wing." Cedric laughed.

"I'm not getting onto you," he said. "It was a brilliant game, honestly. Makes me glad that you weren't on the team when we played Slytherin."

I'm not sure what happened during that conversation. But by the time we got to the pitch, we were friends again. It was like nothing had even happened. And our relationship was restored, minus the romantic aspect. We were just as close as before.

"That was nice," I said as we approached the pitch. "Thanks for this. I was worried we would never be friends again."

"Of course," he said. "Why would we not be? We have too much chemistry to let our relationship go to waste." We stared at each other in bittersweet silence for a moment.

"Cedric! What are you doing here?-Oh." Cho sounded happy as she ran towards Cedric, and then she froze as she saw me. "Hi Grace," she said. It was weird for her. Her boyfriend was talking and laughing with the girl who broke up with him. How could it not be weird?

"Hi, Cho," I said, trying to be nice.

"Grace! Come on! We're starting!" The same thing happened with Draco. He froze when he saw Cedric and I. But in a different way than Cho did. Cho seemed threatened. Draco seemed angry.

"Hey, Draco," Cedric said.

"Cedric," Draco said. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me out onto the pitch before I could say goodbye to Cedric. "Cedric giving you trouble again?" he asked. "I'll kill him, I swear. Don't worry, I'll make sure he leaves you alone."

"No, Draco," I tried to explain. "It's not like that. We're friends again."

"What?" he said.

"Well," I said. "I felt bad. I broke up with him without an explanation one week before the ball. That was mean, I can't pretend like it wasn't. And I've been thinking a lot lately. Obviously I'm with you now, and I couldn't be happier. But he was my boyfriend. I can't brush him off like he never happened. It doesn't make sense that months ago he was my whole world and now we can't even look at each other. So I just wanted to make amends. And he was on his way here so he could walk Cho back to school and he offered to walk with me. We're friends again. I swear, that's all."

"You didn't think to discuss that with me first?" he said. "Did you think about how that would make me feel as your boyfriend?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't think it would matter. I'm with you and he's with Cho."

"Grace," he said. "Don't you see how this situation upsets me a little?"

"Draco," I said. Then I grabbed his face and kissed him. "I swear. You are all I want. I only wanted to get on good terms with Cedric. I just wanted to be able to say hi to him in the hall instead of looking the other way. I just wanted to thank him for being my first. But I've wanted you for way too long to give you up now."

"Promise?" he asked.

"I promise," I said.